Top 1204 Quotes & Sayings by Bertrand Russell - Page 2
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British celebrity Bertrand Russell.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.
In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.
The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.
Religions that teach brotherly love have been used as an excuse for persecution, and our profoundest scientific insight is made into a means of mass destruction.
In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.
Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free.
Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities.
The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.
No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.
When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.
Sin is geographical.
With the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine.
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.
Order, unity, and continuity are human inventions, just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.
Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.
The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.
The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.
Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.
Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.
It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.
Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.
Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.
A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.
Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.
The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.
A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.
I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex.
None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
Liberty is the right to do what I like; license, the right to do what you like.
The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.
The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life, which is impossible to the pure egoist.
Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.
No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?
The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.
To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.
Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.
Awareness of universals is called conceiving, and a universal of which we are aware is called a concept.
Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous and loathed because they impose slavery.
Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.
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